Ready Or Not: It's Going to the Top

I've been hopelessly playing the same games for months now. I've been desperate for something new to come along to stop me from falling into old habits: scuffing cannon shots in Sea of Thieves or endlessly corpse walking in classic World of Warcraft. 

Finally, it seems I might have found what I was looking for. It's the first game in months that is both new and fun... I know sounds revolutionary right? Something has finally ended my pandemic rut. 

That something is the hardcore police shooter 'Ready or Not'. 

It's a delightful mix between the old S.W.A.T games and the Rainbow Six series. You know... that one franchise that got cancelled, and the other that's owned by UbISoFt; the company that couldn't mush a shooter into a paper-thin, chore heavy open world, so they just made Overwatch instead and then butchered Sam Fisher. 

So, yeah, I don't like Ubisoft. 

Ready or Not: that's awesome though. 

An Early Access Tactical Shooter

The fact that the game is in its alpha stage of development and the core gameplay arc is already so addictive is a very promising sign. There are issues with it: VOIP seems to work only when it wants, certain AI can spawn kill you, networking code could be better and there're limited customisation options. But the problems with the game are the type that tentative developers and a vocal community will have no problems ironing out. 

The core gameplay here is incredibly solid. There is a single-player offering, but the game shines most in its multiplayer suite. With a full team of officers in voice chat using a variety of tools it really feels like an organised raid. The unpredictable AI and varied objectives combine to make for some very tense, cat and mouse, situations and being punished for civilian injuries means that in the heat of a full-scale gunfight you'll need to be more careful than in any popular shooter around.

It's a nice midpoint between Rainbow Six and Escape from Tarkov in terms of difficulty and punishment. You only get one life in each match; sop there's a sense of dread when you stand with your face against a door in-game but you won't lose anything as in EFT. 

The shooting and movement are slow and methodical but seeing as peeking around any corner could get you killed instantly. it's just as well. All the guns have an amazing sense of weight and each bullet hits with deadly force. Each match is a satisfying, tense and unique shoot out whose replay-ability is extensive; thanks to reorganised maps and free-flowing enemy deployments. It's just really fun. 

Deafening Beautiful

As well as being a great game to play Ready or Not is a very good-looking and beautiful sounding shooter. The environments are grim, dark and depressing but they do have a glaring beauty that makes these realistic, gritty places intimidating to walk through. This, combined with the impeccable sound design, makes for a deeply immersive insertion every single match.

The sound, whether it's environmental dripping of rain on your gas mask or the thumping bellow of a shotgun flying into the chest of a scumbag. It all sounds perfect and works most of all to draw you into the game and increase the intensity of every situation whether grenades are blowing up in your ear or utter silence rules the moment. 

BUY THIS GAME INSTEAD OF THE OTHER TERRIBLE POPULAR SHOOTERS RELEASED THIS YEAR!!!!

An Open Letter: Mainstream Gaming Needs A Hard Reset

 It's been a tough couple of years for everyone. The global pandemic had people trapped in their houses with little, if anything, to keep them occupied. TV, Streaming services and videogames offered solace to the thousands that needed it. 

However, that time has been and gone. We're looking to move forward, and in short the gaming industry needs to too. Yet, over the last year or so Ive found myself, like many others, constantly disappointed by the quality, design, laziness and general indifference of titles from most large gaming development studios and publishers recently. I haven't been excited for a release, outside of the Indy market, for at least 12 months, and that was for Cyberpunk 2077 (que nervous laughter). 

This brings me on to my point. In short, the decorum, behaviour and conduct of mainstream gaming, in its current state is absolutely horrific. There're rare exceptions of course, but in general mainstream gaming companies seemingly do not care about building positive relationships with their fanbase. In fact they seem totally blind to the benefits of it. So- No, they don't want to push the medium forward. No, they don't want to come up with original ideas and interesting game mechanics. AND NO! They don't want to to write engaging stories when they could be milking the wallets of parents worldwide... by offering useless loot boxes and pointless early access!

All Aboard ! The Hype Train:

But, how are these unoriginal, repetitive, lowest common denominator games selling at all if they're so bad, Peter ? I hear you ask.

As it turns out all it takes is a good trailer, paid content creators, vague language, a few lies and stomping on the laurels of your previous games or any other popular game for that matter. 

We've seen it a million times; a studio releases an amazing trailer that grabs the audiences attention with big explosions, set pieces, cool dialogue and a great soundtrack. The trailer though, often completely glosses over incredible losses in story, mechanics and world building in order to appeal to as many people as possible.

But don't worry because developer droid number 736 said it's all boots on the ground gameplay. 

Real gamers are tired of it. As tired as your bloated franchises.

Most of the time it's just sad to see once great, original franchises saturated to the point that they've completely lost their identity. The recent DICE offering for example is a buggy, broken mess more akin to Burnout crossed with Overwatch than a Battlefield game. This one size fits all approach common with some of the bestsellers serves only to alienate previous fans and dilute the market with poor copies of more original titles.

Copy Cat Culture

Times change. More videogames than ever are being released, and trends develop in what's popular and what isn't. This trending seems to be more prominent nowadays than it's ever been, and influences how games are developed, marketed and released. 

It seems more companies nowadays are constantly chasing the trends, behind the curve and looking to cash in on what's popular. 

The crazy thing is, this is the kicker. Trends start with...OrIgInAl IdEas. 

Instead of copying any emergent successes found by often more creative people. The industry bigwigs need to be more willing to stray from what happens to be selling. Its such a short sighted and poisonous approach to the medium. I understand companies need to make money but in the long run it would pay endlessly to allow the overlooked, incredibly passionate and creative people that often work for them to make the games they actually want. 

As opposed to investors and board members looking to make a quick cash grab hamstringing the creativity buy concerning themselves with what is popular that week. Independent studios are the only thing pushing the industry forward.

Greed removes all art from games. In a lot of cases it's already too late.  

The Failed State

The release of a game used to be the day when you were super excited. You couldn't wait to go to the shop, buy it and slide the disc in and have fun. Nowadays you seem to either launch into a buggy and janky mess or you need to wait three months for a developer to get their act together and patch it. It's this push it out and fix it later mentality that has myself and many others reluctant to buy games by the bigger studios these days. 

You could also be a huge fan of a particular franchise who's been waiting for a new entry for almost a decade but the studio keep announcing  remakes of games from a better time, when creativity was an actual priority. 

Rockstar and Bethesda have made millions form releasing the same game for almost a combined tenure of 20 years. Innovative games that are ready to be played upon release are becoming rarer.

Find the good games! Don't buy the other stuff.

DayZ: The Path Of Most Resistance

Many gamers remember the release of Dayz. Back when an intrepid designer known as Rocket began to strive out in the ARMA 2 engine to make "the most realistic zombie survival game ever". Something that probably wasn't ever achieved to be fair. But It was a simpler time. It was a time when the market wasn't saturated with survival games, Minecraft was in its infancy and if anything the genre could scarcely be called anything other than niche. 

That's why it caught my eye. Here was a game doing something very different. Bandaging after being shot, eating and drinking to avoid a slow death, giving others blood transfusions...we'd never seen things like this before. 

The First of a Thousand Steps

The niche appeal was what drew me to buy ARMA 2 and its DLC in order to play the original Mod... following a Total Biscuit video starring its creator. Those early days of DayZ were a magical time for PC gaming. It was a sandbox that was unparalleled in its brutality, revelled in its realism and practically boasted about its bugs. Seriously, several of the games features were out right broken. I mean you could stand behind a thin veneer of conifer spines and the zombies would be completely powerless to hurt you. And yet, the early days of the Dayz mod were some of the most enjoyable days in gaming ever.

It began growing in popularity after a handful of early youtubers covered it. Including TotalBiscuit, FrankieOnPCIn1080p and Jackfrags. The latter two's shared series is still, to this day, one of the most original pieces of content ever created on the platform. You should check it out if you haven't seen it or if you just fancy some warm nostalgia. 

So, when the Mods exposure increased so did peoples expectations. Unfortunately, a lack of proper methods for dealing with the bugs, within its dated engine, left it feeling broken for way too long. The team behind it were fighting a losing battle and  inevitably caved. After this they decided to start fresh with release of DayZ Standalone in 2013.

Returning to Suffer

The standalone version didn't have a smooth release either though and the player base steadily dwindled. However, I discovered recently the hardcore fans have been playing consistently, in their thousands, for almost a decade. I joined them once again this month to see how far the game had come in my years of absence. 

In short... the game feels exactly the same to play as it always has. It's functional and always exceptionally quirky but the realism is where the game still shines most. The effort required to go from a shovel toting walking meal to a vigilante murderer is almost unparalleled. It's equal parts genuinely frustrating and outstandingly rewarding . It's one of the main draws of the game and as always its still an incredible feeling to gear up... and equally as devastating when you lose it all.  

The Long Road

Looking back its hard to say that they ever achieved the famous goal of "creating the most realistic zombie survival game ever". However what is certain is that DayZ was and still is a truly unique, daring, unconventional and downright quirky experience that's unmatched by anything else.  i believe it's these characteristics that keep hardcore player base going even as the game, with its many past forms, nears 10 years old. 

If you're looking for a unique challenge then this maverick of a survival game deserves your attention.

Its on Steam, Xbox One and PS4. Give it a go !!!!

I’ve written my first article for Keengamer.com ! It’s about some of the best early access games ever.

https://www.keengamer.com/articles/features/opinion-pieces/7-great-games-that-champion-early-access/

Talked about games that make losing painful - check it out!

https://whatculture.com/gaming/10-video-games-that-make-losing-truly-painful

90s kids have some amazing gaming memories ... I’ve written some :)

https://whatculture.com/gaming/10-video-games-90s-kids-never-forgot

Cyberpunk 2077- The Good, The Bad and The Possibility

CD Projekt Red have received justified criticism for the state of Cyberpunk 2077 upon its release... particularly on consoles. However, as a PC gamer, I must say that my experience has been a far cry from what I've seen online. 

The game's launch for me was no worse than a launch of a Bethesda game, in fact significantly better, if we consider the more recent releases from them. 

Like all other gamers this year I was very excited to get my hands on and finally play CDPR's newest open-world game. I'd preordered it and even pre-downloaded it on a geriatric internet connection... so anticipation was high. I'll just come out and say it I was not at all disappointed, on the contrary, so far I've been having an amazing time. 

Is it as good as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt? For me personally probably not but they're two very different games. It's important to remember that I was working from the experience of two prior games and several novels when riding into Velen for the first time... so its hardly fair for me to compare the two. Instead ill be talking about Cyberpunk as a single entity, what I've enjoyed so far, what I've had problems with and how I think it could be improved (as I imagine it will be) or modded.

A City Like No Other

Of all the things in this game, the city itself is the developers crowning achievement. Night City is simultaneously a densely beautiful and deeply depressing environment by design. One which wholeheartedly absorbs you into it while hiding endlessly fascinating districts, skylines, architecture, cultural influences and sharp contrasting colour behind every single corner. 

I've never walked around so much in a game and simply took in the sights for fear of missing out. This is because missing content (by which I mean just visually) here almost feels tragic so in my fifty-two hours so far I've never once used fast travel which is unheard of for me.

The level of detail and consideration put into the design of every bar, park, mega building, highway, statue or holographic forest is absolutely astounding and something which has gone unappreciated in the aftermath of its release. Its a city made up of thousands of distinct parts which collectively form one incredible 3D masterpiece. 

Mercenary Meddling 

In the game you play as "V" an ambitious mercenary looking make his way to the very top echelons of Night City but starting from the bottom... its a long road. You'll be taking all sorts of jobs along the way that'll have you hacking, stealing, killing, sabotaging, racing and sneaking your way through the exemplary aforementioned locations.

The side activities are always satisfying thanks to the complexity and synergy of the hacking mechanics, rewarding nature of sneaking through places unnoticed and the sheer joy of blowing people up but they become much more enjoyable as you progress and have more options. I've found the RPG like skill tree to be one of the best aspects of the game. It's incredibly easy to build a powerhouse character that specialises in hacking and shooting and with the synergy between skills being a huge focus it can result in a feel of adaptive capability that's very rarely seen.  

The main story and side missions are thematically interconnected and varied however they definitely feel less so this time around and the abrupt endings to distinct quest chains often leave character relationships feeling anticlimactic.

Take one relationship I spent hours building with a nomad woman out in the desert for example. She would send messages telling me how much V meant to her but once I'd finished assisting her in quelling a rebellion in her nomad tribe, she as much as went "thanks V... see you never". Giving in to the end of the chapter and lack of scripted interaction for the rest of my playthrough (admittedly not a full one yet). 

I think a GTA style "Hey cousin, let us go bowling?" would have gone a long way.

Something's Bugging Me

While I've had a relatively easy time with regards to issues running the game I have seen my fair share of bugs while playing. They've been very varied and elicited laughter, confusion, surprise and in one case tears but they were never game-breaking and I managed to see the funny side.

One particular example involved Jackie (V's partner in crime) taking a chip out of his head and giving it to V but instead of a chip, he chose to see if he could shove his revolver in one ear and out the other. I looked on in disbelief behind a haze of tears of laughter... it was hilarious and only got funnier with the added context of the situation. 

During general play superficial bugs such as small items floating mid-air, cars driving through terrain and vanishing NPC's have been a common occurrence, however, not to the degree to which others have stated. I guess in this regard I've been lucky as honestly, it's been incredibly rare for my immersion to be broken at all aside from the odd giggle. 

Time To Heal

Cyberpunk 2077 has an uphill battle to win over most gamers and it's going to need a lot of work but I feel the core experience has been done an injustice... it's brilliant at heart. Over estimations and missteps in the development cycle have cost this game its deserved release. However, CDPR don't strike me as a company that will take this criticism lightly and I'm sure they will work tirelessly to fix the problems with it and make it into the great game it was designed to be. 

Speaking about problems can we get a setting to change how zoomed in the minimap is please, my gorgeous futuristic cars brakes would really appreciate it.  

PC Specification:

Res: 2560x1440

GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 1080

CPU: Intel I7-8700k

16GB RAM